ARTE Docs USA

The Cultural Services of the French Embassy provides a platform for exchange and innovation between French and American artists, intellectuals, educators, students, the tech community, and the general public. Based in New York City, Washington D.C., and eight other cities across the US, the Cultural Services develops the cultural economy by focusing on six principal fields of action: the arts, literature, cinema, the digital sphere, French language and higher education. For more information on the Film Department of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, click here.

ARTE is a Franco-German Television network, a European channel, that promotes programming in the areas of culture and the arts.

The treaty for the formation of ARTE GEIE from 30 April 1991 underlines the project’s significance and ambition. ARTE’s mission is described as follows:

"The objective of this consortium is to create and produce television programmes of a cultural and international nature in the broadest sense, to be broadcast by itself or by other channels, via satellite or any other medium. These programs should aim to promote mutual understanding and unity among the peoples of Europe."

A year later, ARTE went on air. Today, almost 20 years later, ARTE is well established throughout Europe with high-quality creative broadcasting. Today Arte is formally available in Belgium, Austria, Lebanon, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland via cable. Through ASTRA satellite ARTE (SD) is also available in,North Africa and West Asia. The Australian Special Broadcasting Service translates many ARTE programs into English for broadcast on its own television network and overseas. Many French-language Arte programs are also broadcast in Canada on the ARTV cable channel, partly owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (85%) and ARTE itself (15%)

Since 1992 the channel has built up its international notoriety through its intensive coproduction activity and purchase of films, documentaries, drama and performing arts throughout the world. In 2012 roughly 33% of the programs were produced in France, 32% in Germany, 23% in other European countries and around 15% overseas. Approximately 52% of all programs are documentaries, 16% are feature films and 12% are TV Dramas. 13% of our programming is assigned to information programs and a further 7% to music, theatre and dance.

The number of new productions on our channel is particularly significant, since 75% of ARTE evening programmes are first runs.

ARTE also offers programs on all sorts of screens that are free and without advertising. The new media formats complement the on-air programming.

ARTE SALES (www.artepro.com/sales) is the international programme sales unit of the European public channel ARTE.

Our catalogue features over 3,000 hours of documentary, co-produced by ARTE in association with the most prestigious production companies worldwide.

The programs on offer reflect ARTE's ambitious editorial policy, and cover a wide range of fields, such as history, society, discovery, science, music and the arts. Imbued with the channel's daring and creative spirit, ARTE Distribution has become a key international partner.

ARTE Sales is present across all media and negotiates broadcasting rights as well as licenses for DVD editors and institutions. It also has a vast catalogue of on-line rights. Our team also finds international funds for projects initiated by the channel and developed by independent producers.

ARTE live: Programs can be live streamed on www.arte.tv as well as on smartphones and tablets using the ARTE application

ARTE Future: Platform that joins viewers and online users with experts and takes a closer look at tomorrow's world. Documentaries and fictions fuel the debate on social problems covering ecology, the economy and technology. http://future.arte.tv/fr (not every program is available in the US).